Law and Order season one arrived today. I open it up and see all the discs are securely on the spindles (for a change). Good, I think to myself - no damage. Little did I suspect. I remove the first disc to play it and the damn thing is scratched up and covered with fingerprints and smudges. WTF?!! Either Amazon is selling used goods as new or the packaging facilities that pack these discs in the cases are total crap. I've seen a lot of this kind of problem lately. I have had similar experiences with discs purchased from Amazon, Amazon.ca, Playcentric, Deep Discount ... Can I really be the only one ordering new but getting damaged goods that appear used?

Since Law & Order was just released I really doubt the set was used. Sounds like a problem w/ the factory. The disc probably fell in production and was put back in by someone w/ greasy fingers.

Sounds like US Customs to me.

They probably opened your DVD to make sure it wasn't full if cocaine or ecstacy and dropped the discs. They then took put the discs back on the spindles and sent them to you.

Key questions: Were the Security Stickers cut or removed? Was the shrinkwrap missing?

If so, then Customs probably intercepted your package.

If customs opens a package I believe they afix a label to it stating that it has been opened and searched.

I've even bought discs from B&M stores here in the U.S. and have found fingerprints on a couple of them when opened. Needless to say, they go right back to the store.

Figure it was just carelessness at the manufacturing plant, since the security seals were all perfectly intact.

Shrinkwrap was still on the set. No security stickers but there usually are none on a box set. I can't explain it. Possibly a production error as renaldow says. The only other thing that occurs to me is that possibly warehouse employees watch them and return them to stock. I have heard claims that this happens but I don't know how credible they are. Another damaged set to return. Sheesh. This is getting old.

I've purchased DVDs from online store in US and encountered similar problem you did. New DVD still in shrink wrap, but when opened, the disc is all scratched up and finger print smudges all over. The disc wouldn't even load on my DVD player. Either it was dropped during manufacturing process as some people speculated, or it was reopened at some time later and resealed as a new DVD. If the disc was dropped during manufacturing process, it should've been retested to make sure it still work before sealed to be sold to consumer.